Triple Take - Homemade Pneumatic Dart Gun

[Doctore]

Hello everyone.

A few days ago I built a simple ball valve airgun to test some darts I made. The reservoir is 0,5l coke bottle and maximum operating pressure is about 6 bars, limited by the pump. A crude aiming system using bent nails is installed on the barrel, as you will see from the videos. No spring loaded mechanism, as I plan to build another full metal ball valve airgun (1l volume, 20+bar) so I am not going to spend time making trigger mechanism for this weaker airgun.

Projectiles are simple darts made out of nails/screws, hot glue and fabric. I also made some mini darts using tiny metal rods from an old umbrella. I tried shooting 6 of these at once like a pneumatic shotgun, but only with partial success as not all of them would embed in wooden targets. The most likely reason is lack of power. So I determined that the best way to shoot these mini darts is to combine 3 of them loosely with some electrical tape. I have prepared 4 damage videos which also showcase the gun itself.

1. In the first video projectile is composed of 3 mini darts combined loosely with electrical tape. I would love to see how these would behave against ballistic gel and at greater power, possibly 20+ bar. I believe their paths would deviate.

2.In the second video 6 mini darts were stacked in a barrel, it was a partial success. Likely reason why this did not work as I hoped is lack of power or something about the way how they are stacked prevents them from flying straight.

3. In the third video projectile is composed of 3 nails connected by electrical tape and some fabric for stabilization, blunt force is preferred here than penetration.

4. Fourth video is a penetration test of a regular Nail/Screw dart.

Any idea on how to improve these darts is welcome. I will continue to test various projectile designs and will post as much content here as possible. Enjoy the videos!

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